constantly open to it by sea. However, when many small ships were sent from Constantinople to intercept ingress, the citizens, through illness and lack of all things, were compelled to give up everything, and to surrender themselves twelve days after the siege began. After the city was occupied it became necessary for the army to proceed from there through waste regions, and the army divided itself into two files. Now, when Bohemund arrived at a running brook and rich meadows, and was about to graze his horses and cattle, the Saracens came upon him; and he would have suffered defeat if counts Hugh and Godfrey, with forty thousand soldiers on the march, had not come to his assistance and rescue. And there both sides fought valiantly. In this same battle, in which Medes, Turks, Chaldeans, Saracens and Arabs took part, forty thousand men are said to have been slain; but Suleiman (Solimanus), the sultan, escaped in the retreat. Thus the Christians availed themselves of their timely harvest and the fruits of victory, and without further mischief reached Iconium[Iconium, capital of Lycaonia, in Asia Minor, was a flourishing city in the time of the apostle Paul, with a mixed population of Jews and Greeks. Under the later emperors it was a colony, but during the Middle Ages one of the greatest cities of Asia Minor, and important in the history of the crusades.], the capital of Lycaonia; and they captured it, together with the city of Heraclea and the city of Tarsus. In consequence, Baldwin, a man of excellent mind and ingenuity, became the first ruler of Asia, with Tarsus as his seat. Afterwards the great army proceeded to Cilicia[Cilicia is a district in the southeastern part of Asia Minor bordering on Syria to the east, on Cappadocia and Lycaonia on the north, and on Pisidia and Pamphylia on the northwest and north. The first inhabitants are supposed to have been of the Syrian race. According to myth a certain Cilix, son of Agenor, set out with his brothers Cadmus and Phoenix in search of their missing sister, Europa (who had sailed away from the coast of Phoenicia on the back of Zeus in the disguise of a bull), but stopped short on the coast of Asia Minor, and peopled the plain of Cilicia with his followers.], called Little Armenia; and after capturing the city of Caesaria, they came into the land of Cappadocia,[Cappadocia was a rough and generally sterile mountain region in Asia Minor to which different boundaries were assigned at various times. Under the Persian Empire it included the whole country inhabited by a people of Syrian origin called White Syrians.] which lies beyond high mountains, and encamped before Antioch at a distance of about one thousand paces from the city, along a river, which could not be forded without peril. And the captains viewed the city, and they questioned the prisoners as to how it was constituted. They answered, saying, that the king of this city was Cassianus; and, as the Hebrew scriptures indicates the city was first called Reblata, and it was later named Antioch by the ruler of the East, after himself. It is surrounded by a double wall. The inner wall was built of tiles, the outer of square stones; and it is provided with four hundred sixty towers. Within the city are four hills, on one of which, lying to the east, is located such a naturally fortified citadel, that it is invulnerable to all weapons, military engines, and storming. The inhabitants call this region Coelesyria.[In the time immediately succeeding the Macedonian conquest, Syria was considered as divided into two parts. The north, including the whole country down to the Lebanon range, was one half of the division; and the south, consisting of Coelesyria, was the other. The latter is sometimes called Cassiotis.] The region is moistened by rivers and springs, giving it a fertile soil, and rich in grassy meadows. The sea in the vicinity abounds in good fish. The city is located 12 thousand paces from the sea. The aforesaid river has a gate where it flows by Antioch. From the time the first church was built there, this city was greatly beautified. There Peter, prince of the apostles, set up and maintained the first patriarchal see. Theophilus, its seventh prelate after Peter, in order to extinguish the name of the ruthless king, Antiochus, named the city Theophilia, after himself. It so flourished under its Christian name that it had fifty-three bishops, one hundred suffragan bishops[A ‘suffragan bishop’ is a diocesan bishop who is subject to an archbishop as the metropolitan of the province.], and three hundred sixty churches. Now when the Christians considered it necessary to besiege this well fortified city for some time, the captains debated various measures, and in the Year of Our Salvation one thousand ninety-seven the city was besieged with many contrivances. After a heavy siege it was captured by the highly renowned Bohemund, son of the Norman duke, Robert of Apulieia. He secured access to it through Firouz (Pyrrho), a mighty citizen there, who, marveling at the power of Bohemund, volunteered to betray the city to the Christians if they would permit the said Bohemund to become its ruler. When the Christians entered the city they spared all the people. Yaghi-Siyan (Cassianus)[Yaghi-Siyan (died June 2, 1098) was the Muslim governor of Antioch during the siege by the crusaders in 1098. The crusaders recorded Yaghi-Siyan’s name in various forms in Latin, including Acxianus, Gratianus, and, as in the , Cassianus.], the king, fled into the mountains, and was slain by the Armenians. But now came Kerbogha (Corbane), chief of the Persian knights, together with Sensadolo, the son of Yaghi-Siyan; and when the city was suffering for lack of all the necessaries of life, Bohemund decided to give battle.

And now the affairs of the Christians in Antioch were in such a bad state that they would have succumbed to apostasy and desperation if God had not evidenced his inclination toward our salvation and protection by a miracle. The spear that had pierced the side of Jesus Christ on the cross was, through revelation to a churchman, found in Saint Andrew’s church. The Christian captains then became inspired with so much hope that they determined to fight with the enemy. Therefore this holy spear was carried forth as a banner; and through Bohemund the enemy was defeated and about one hundred thousand were slain. About fifteen thousand camels were captured. And thus the Christians were so enriched that from a state of utter want they came into one of highest abundance—all through the miracle of this spear.

Antioch, situated on the left bank of the Orontes, about 20 miles from the sea in a fertile plain which separates the Lebanon ranges from the spurs of the Taurus, was the capital of the Greek kingdom of Syria, and long the chief city of the region. Antigonus was the first to recognize the strategic importance of the site. He began to build a city, Antigonia, but on his defeat and death at the hands of his rival Seleucus Nicator, in 301, the latter founded Antioch and made use of Antigonia as a quarry for his building. The city was laid out in four quarters, thus giving rise to the name Tetrapolis—four cities. Antioch flourished and developed into a mighty center of trade. By the fourth century CE it had a population of nearly a quarter of a million. Four miles to the west was Daphne, a pleasure resort of shady groves in which rose a great temple to Apollo founded by Seleucus I. The precincts of Daphne were endowed with the right of asylum, and it became the haunt of society’s outcasts. Under Antiochus I, the city became the capital of the western section of the Seleucid Empire, and soon after the residence also of the Seleucid emperors.

Antioch was one of the earliest strongholds of the Christian faith—the first place where the Christian name was used (Acts 11:26), and a center of missionary efforts in the Apostolic age. In a sense, its church became the mother of the Gentile churches, and after the fall of Jerusalem it became a real metropolis of Christianity. Peter visited Antioch and, basing its claim on a tradition that he remained there for a time as head of its church, Antioch was accorded by the Council of Nicaea the place of honor after Alexandria and Rome. It was destroyed by the Persian king Chrosroës in 540 CE, but was later rebuilt by Justinian, who gave it the new name of Theupolis. The ancient wells which still surround the insignificant modern town are probably those built by Justinian.

The Arabs took Antioch when they overran Syria in 638. It passed into the possession of the crusaders in 1098 after a bitter siege of nine months, the end of which was hastened by an earthquake and betrayal. Assigned to Bohemund, prince of Tarentum, it remained the capital of a Latin principality for nearly two centuries.

Hildebert, a bishop, and a man of great ingenuity and skill, was renowned at this time for his wisdom and art in metrical verse. Because of his Christian faith he suffered many temptations as well as imprisonment and bondage at Rome. There he wrote many excellent, elegant and extraordinary letters and a number of courageous poems upon his exile; a very beautiful book about the tediousness of this life, and his own lament; a beautiful prayer to the Holy Trinity, and many other matters.[Hildebert of Lavardin (c. 1055-1133), archbishop of Tours was born at Lavardin near Vendome. He was probably a pupil of Berengarius of Tours, and became master of the school at LeMans. While he was absent in Rome in 1111, Henry of Lausanne spread heretical doctrines and denounced the bishop. In 1125 he was transferred unwillingly to the archbishopric of Tours, and there came into conflict with the French king over ecclesiastical patronage and with the bishop of Dol about the authority of his see in Brittany. He presided over the synod of Nantes in 1127, and died in 1133. His writings include letters, poems, a few sermons, and lives of Hugo, abbot of Cluny, and of Radegunda.]

Saint Maurillus, bishop of Rouen, renowned for virtue and piety, also lived at this time.